Live data from Hacker News

I automated my job application process

blog.daviddodda.com

91–100 of 884 posts

Re: I automated my job application process

#91

As someone who automates everything and normally loves this type of thing, my approach for job hunting has been way different. Instead of spray and pray, I spend a week or so deeply researching where I want to work and figure out how to get there role-wise. Everything 100% manual and focused, no more than 8 total companies. Maybe spray and pray works if you’re more junior, but later in your career you’ll want to be v…

This sounds like a good and noble pursuit, but I would be able to take exactly one ghosting or premature rejection before abandoning it completely. There are so many BS reasons applications are ignored, I can’t see this approach working well. Maybe if you can network your way to a manager or something

Re: I automated my job application process

#92
post #47

Something has to give. As a hiring manager I can’t filter through 100s of resumes or profiles. Using all the top sites as well that are supposed to make the hiring process easier.

Is there a solution that doesn’t expose you to the entirety of the internet at one time? Proactive networking maybe? Asking existing employees if they have friends looking for jobs?

Re: I automated my job application process

#93

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

It all ends up being a nasty feedback loop. (Especially) junior people in a somewhat tough market for tech end up spamming resumes so companies respond with pretty crappy algorithmic filters which basically somewhat randomly toss most of the resumes into the bit bucket. Rinse and repeat.

But per downthread comment, applicants don't care if their actions make things worse for the market as a whole. And it's not clear if they should as a one-turn game. (As someone else remarked, Prisoner's Dilemma and all that.)

Re: I automated my job application process

#94
post #23

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

What’s our alternative? It doesn’t seem to be “carefully consider and apply to a handful of highly relevant postings”. I don’t see the downsides for candidates to play the numbers game.

Referrals and networking? When has submitting a resume to a portal ever been the way to find a job other than a cookie cutter one?

Apply like a bot, work like a bot.

Re: I automated my job application process

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With automated hiring spam and our industry's tenuous grasp of basic integrity with actual HN posts proudly boasting of their apps to help you cheat during interviews using LLMs, several of my friends who assist in hiring at their companies have already returned to "on site" interviews to cut down on the proverbial chaff. The kicker? These are 100% remote jobs - the interviews are being performed at shared workspaces…

Thinking that "in person" will stop or prevent cheating is laughable. For god-sakes, the chess world is freaking out over an ANAL BEADS cheating scandal! https://kotaku.com/chess-champion-anal-bead-magnus-carlsen-h... https://github.com/RonSijm/ButtFish A candidate who wants that job will figure out some way to have ChatGPT help them in a way you can't detect, even if it also has an impact on their ass health.

If you are dumb enough not to hire someone who is able to integrate ChatGPT from analbeads into a conversation while looking natural then that is on you.

Re: I automated my job application process

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With automated hiring spam and our industry's tenuous grasp of basic integrity with actual HN posts proudly boasting of their apps to help you cheat during interviews using LLMs, several of my friends who assist in hiring at their companies have already returned to "on site" interviews to cut down on the proverbial chaff. The kicker? These are 100% remote jobs - the interviews are being performed at shared workspaces…

Thinking that "in person" will stop or prevent cheating is laughable. For god-sakes, the chess world is freaking out over an ANAL BEADS cheating scandal! https://kotaku.com/chess-champion-anal-bead-magnus-carlsen-h... https://github.com/RonSijm/ButtFish A candidate who wants that job will figure out some way to have ChatGPT help them in a way you can't detect, even if it also has an impact on their ass health.

As long as the interviewee also reports to work with their anal AI interface, what's the problem ?

Re: I automated my job application process

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest?

Add a tiny captcha-like task that takes a real candidate who read the job ad 20 seconds to do, but won’t get done by spray and pray candidates.

Bunch of services that can do captchas now. It’d maybe lessen the load on employers but then job seeking becomes pay to play. The candidate who can afford one of those services + automation beats out those who can’t. It’s already an arms race of sorts.

Re: I automated my job application process

#98

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

Maybe not your company, but it seems hiring companies brought this upon themselves with immediate AI rejects of qualified candidates, ghost jobs, ghosting candidates after interview, etc, etc.

If it takes a qualified candidate 100's of applications to land a single interview, then can you blame someone for automating it? I'd say that having the initiative and ability to automate it well would make this guy a great hire, if he hadn't already found a job!

Re: I automated my job application process

#99
> Format the response as a JSON object with these keys:{ "status": "success" or "error", ...

Would it not be better to ask the LLM to generate the status key last, since it cannot know ahead of generation whether the generation will actually be successful?

Re: I automated my job application process

#100

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

As a hiring manager, I've chosen to opt out of this system altogether. Instead of public postings, I just poll my network and post job announcements in private channels in my professional community. Much higher signal-to-noise ratio.

Yeah, a lot of people here hate this but the few jobs I've gotten in the past 25 years or so were always directly through people I knew. The resume was pretty much pro forma.

But, yeah, if you don't have a network you're in a more difficult position.

Post reply on HN